Mental Health & Agriculture: There is Always Hope
Agriculture is known to have numerous unique occupational hazards. Physical hazards include heat and sun exposure and the potential dangers of working with heavy machinery. Working out in the elements also brings the risk of venomous snakes, spiders, and...
U.S. Long-Grain Rice Faces Growing Challenges Overseas
The U.S. has consistently ranked among the top-5 rice exporters in the world. However, since hitting a record 3.98 million metric tons (mmt) in 2002, U.S. rice exports have shown a downward trend, reaching 2.98 mmt in the marketing year 2020/21. The decrease in US...
Potential Cost Savings of Multiple Inlet Rice Irrigation
Irrigation water can be one of the largest expenses associated with rice production, particularly when energy prices are high as in the current production season. Multiple inlet rice irrigation (MIRI) has potential to reduce the cost of applying irrigation water to...
Are we ready for one more Niña season?
The latest CPC-IRI Forecast of the Niño/Southern Oscillation has increased the probability of being in a Niña season through summer and fall (Graph 1). La Niña patterns typically bring drought to the Southern Plains. The risk of continuing to suffer the...
Outlook for Feed grain Fundamentals in the 2022/2023 Marketing Year
The war between Russia and Ukraine has upended grain flows from the Black Sea region for months. Since the first days of fighting in late February, Ukraine’s export terminals in the southern part of the country have been closed. This from a nation that provides 10...
Impact of Increasing Fertilizer Prices and Interest Rates on Farm Supply Cooperatives
Fertilizer prices exploded during the past year and are now further fueled by the Ukraine conflict. Interest rates have also increased substantially. There is a theory, associated with economist John Taylor that for every percentage point of...
Crop Insurance the Key to Avoiding Another Farm Economy Downturn
In 2017 Extension Economists from across the South worked on a major producer education effort that resulted in a book titled Surviving the Farm Economy Downturn[1]. The 1980s is second only to the Great Depression in terms of really bad financial outcomes for...
Prospects for Retained Ownership in a High Input Cost Environment
Retaining ownership of calves beyond weaning is a value-added process that provides cow-calf enterprises access to a greater share of the retail dollar. There are costs and benefits to selling at weaning as well as costs and benefits when retaining ownership, each of...
2022 Range and Pasture Conditions
Last week’s Crop Progress Report from USDA provided the first data point on 2022 pasture and range conditions. Like other crops, the Crop Progress Report shows the percent of pasture in very poor, poor, fair, good, and excellent condition. According to the report, 29%...
Milestone Indicators of U.S. Cotton Supply and Demand
It is generally the case that the U.S. cotton market is influenced by aggregate production uncertainty. One reason for this is that a majority of the U.S. acreage is planted in Texas (Figure 1), with much of that under dryland conditions contributing to...
In Historic Town Centers Beauty is More than Skin Deep
Amid widespread decline and disinvestment, numerous small towns and rural communities throughout the US have taken action to restore their downtown as the focal point for economic, social, and civic activity in the region. Downtown revitalization approaches—such as...
Removing Fertilizer Tariffs is Not a (Phosphate) Rock and a Hard Place
Last month, 90 members of Congress sent a letter to the chair of the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) requesting suspension of the countervailing duties on phosphates from Morocco to help ease fertilizer prices for American farmers. These duties...
The Value of Proper Soil pH
The increased cost of fertilizers has many users asking where fertility costs can be reduced. Soil testing has long been recommended for farmers, ranchers, and homeowners to identify fertility levels and enable them to only purchase/apply that which is...
Should Feeder Calves be PI Tested?
In recent years, Southeastern producers have asked whether testing for Persistently Infected (PI) Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD) virus generates a premium for feeder cattle. The answer likely depends on certain factors. For example, if a group of feeder cattle is born...
U.S. Total Rice Acerage Projected at 35 Year Low
In the Prospective Plantings report released March 31st by USDA-NASS, total planted rice acreage for 2022 was projected at 2.452 million acres, down 3% or 80,000 acres from last year. If realized, this would be the lowest acreage of rice planted in the United...
Reliance on H-2A Workers Continues to Spike as Specialty Crop Producers Face Labor Shortages
Access to farm labor continues to be a significant challenge for specialty crop growers,1 who face challenges filling positions with domestic workers. This is due in part to the physical and temporary nature of employment, and the ability of employers to offer...
Fed Cattle Pricing: Will Well-Intentioned Proposals Actually Reduce Cattle Prices?
While questions about market power in the meatpacking sector have been around for well over 100 years, the spike in retail beef prices following the fire at the Tyson facility in Holcomb, Kansas, in August 2019, and the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, brought about a...
Extension Budgets and Budget Tools
The Southern Ag Today team of editors and contributing authors are, for the most part, a group of Extension Agricultural Economics Faculty from the Southern Region Land-Grant University Systems. Many of this same group are responsible for a decades-old...
Index of Weekly Google Searches for ” How to Cook Lamb”, 2004-2022
Lamb prices have reached record highs over the past 18 months. One reason is growing lamb demand. Today’s figure is Google searches for phrases including or similar to “How to Cook Lamb.” Internet traffic on this topic has steadily...
Projected Decrease in Peanut Acreage Could Have Greater Impacts on Overall Production
Peanut acres in the U.S. decreased 5% in 2021, but with strong yields, total production ended almost 9% higher than in 2020. The 2022 crop year is shaping up to start with a similar story on acreage. However, early indications point to the potential for a...
Federal Judge Strikes Down Texas Drone Law as Unconstitutional
A judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas has held that the “Use of Unmanned Aircraft” statute violates the First Amendment. View Order here. The lawsuit, National Press Photographers Association v. McCraw, was...
Shipping Container Disruptions Cause Considerable Export Losses for Southern Ports
The coronavirus pandemic had significant consequences for the U.S. economy, prompting the federal government to help households through stimulus payments. Coupled with deferred consumer spending, these payments created additional demand for durable goods, satisfied by...
Examining the Used Combine Market
Buying and selling equipment is an important aspect of row crop production. Combine purchasing and resale represent one of the largest decisions row crop operators must make. These decisions can impact the overall profitability of an operation. Used combine prices...
Beef Cow Slaughter Continues to Run High
The culling of beef cows was a major reason why the size of the beef herd decreased during 2021 as beef cow slaughter was up by almost 9% from 2020 levels. A frustrating calf market and drought in much of the US led to herd reductions as a lot of cows were sent to...
World Wheat Supplies in Response to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
World wheat supplies are tight, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts at risk a significant portion of the world’s wheat supply. World wheat ending stocks in the 2021/22 marketing year are estimated at 278 mmt, the lowest since 2016/17 (263 mmt) (USDA, FAS, PSD,...
Overtime for the Agricultural Industry
The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) does not require that employees who are employed in agriculture receive the federal overtime payment of time and one-half their regular rates for hours worked more than 40 hours per week. However, states are free to...
The U.S. Ethanol Industry and Unintended Consequences
Often in agricultural policy we find that well intentioned policies designed to solve a problem often have unintended consequences. A good example of this is the U.S. ethanol industry. Since the 1970s the U.S. government has implemented a variety of...
On-Farm Cost of Contracting High Path Avian Influenza in a Commercial Broiler Flock
As high path avian influenza (HPAI) spreads rapidly across the U.S., the on-farm financial ramification of an infection in a commercial poultry flock can be catastrophic. This article is a follow-up to the recent Southern Ag Today article posted on March...
Dairy Product Prices
Dairy industry participants have had several tough years over the past decade as it relates to milk and milk product prices. However, the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 have been positive from a price received standpoint. With the U.S. all milk price sitting...
Less Corn, More Soybeans, Cotton, and Wheat Projected to be Planted in 2022
Table 1. Projected Planted Area (‘000 of Acres) 202020212022Soybeans83,35487,19590,955Corn90,65293,35789,490Other67,26165,24365,095Wheat (all)44,45046,70347,351Cotton (all)12,09211,22012,234Sorghum5,8807,3056,205Rice...
What Are Right-to-Farm Laws?
Agricultural operations often cause dust and odors which could impact neighbors and bring nuisance claims. All 50 states have a right-to-farm law on the books, providing a nuisance defense for agricultural operations. This defense varies from...
The Future for Cotton
Cotton is a key crop for Southern agriculture and, like many other commodities in the South, is heavily export dependent. Unlike other commodities, we reimport a lot of cotton in the form of textiles which makes export demand more closely tied with U.S. import demand...
Too Many Dollars Chasing Too Few Goods
After years of stable and low inflation and an almost unprecedented stretch of steady economic growth, our economy is now experiencing the highest inflation we’ve seen in over 30 years. No doubt you have seen Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve...
March Cattle on Feed Sets a Record
The latest Cattle on Feed report was released last Friday and reported a record high level of cattle in feedlots for any March. The March 1st total of 12.16 million head was up 1.4 percent above a year ago and is the highest total since the data series began...
Indirect Effects of the Eastern European Conflict on Cotton
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has direct implications on the global supply of corn and wheat because of the relatively large quantities of those crops that those two countries produce and export. It is not surprising then that grain futures have risen...